WCMD Challenge # 5

Okay - I've gotten my challenge number mixed up. This challenge was to do glitter and glitz. So this is a glitzy Tinkerbell. This was the first time that I've used this cartridge. I don't know if I have the patience for the teeny tiny pieces!

WCMD Challenge #7

This challenge was to make a friendship card. The image is from Nifty Fifties.

WCMD Challnge #6

For this challenge, we had to follow a sketch that included a birdcage. I don't have a birdcage image or on my card. this is a tag that looked birdcagey enough for me....

WCMD Challenge #4

This challenge was to build a card around a stamped image. This is an elaborate paisley stamp that I have not had a chance to use yet. I embossed it in silver, and I think it matches the purple and black patterned paper behind.

WCMD Challenge #3

This challenge was to use Pink, White and Black. I think I will use this as an engagement congratulations card. The dark pink and white patterned paper is the card, the black background behind that is just my computer. The wine bottle and glass are from Summer in Paris.

With a special guest star....

I made this card just to send to a friend of mine. The image is from Reminisce Accents cartridge...it was a little more finicky than I thought, but it's pretty. The special guest star in the background is one of my cats, Dexter, who jumped into the shot...

Just a note...

I made my sister a set of notecards for her birthday. They are pretty simple, but my mom always said "you can never have too many blank notecards". That was always one of the gifts we gave teachers as end of year gifts, either blank notecards, or a pretty set of paper plates with matching napkins. The note is from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge, and the cut outs down the side is from a punch (I can't remember what brand...). Simple but effective.

Summer Theme Challenge

Another NSD challenge from www.mypinkstamper.com. The challenge was for a summer theme. I've done fireflies (from Stretch your Imagination). I used a yellow gel pen to highlight their rear ends, do dots around the edges of the card, and I wrote "simple joys" ate the top. The yellow didn't show up too well when it dried, so I had to go over it a few times, which changed the look a little bit.

Fireflies were one of my favourite things about spring/summer. I can't even remember the last time I saw one now. Do you think our kids/grandkids will believe us when we tell them that there used to be bugs whose rear ends lit up?

Pink, Black and Green Challenge

This was for the "Pink, Green and Black" challenge over at www.mypinkstamper.com. I like these challenges, because I'm using things that I don't normally use. I picked up this set of Japanese inspired stamps months ago, but hadn't yet figured out when I would/could use them. The fact that these cards are just "because", no person/event in mind, it's actually a lot more freeing!
I used the blender pen and chalk to colour this in. Funny thing - I lived in South Korea for a year (15 years ago), and as a souvenir, I bought a traditional Korean outfit (a hanbok). It was made a bright green top and bright pink bottom - it wasn't til I finished the card that I realized how similar it was.

Incorporate a tag challenge

First of all, the artistic looking black band with silver swirls is not part of the design...I just set the card on top of my computer when I took the picture!!
Another of my new toys - watercolour pencils and a water brush. That's what I used to colour in the butterfly. I stamped it, and cut it out.
I really love the clear stamps on a stamp block. My mom and sisters and I started doing stamping years ago, so all the stamps were the red rubber on wood blocks. With the clear cling stamps, I can make my own stamps. I took flowers from various sets, and mounted them all together to make a flower collage, stamed that with versa watermark ink, then used transparant embossing powder.
The tag is the circle from "A Child's Year" cartridge, and I used an irridescent green/blue ribbon. Granted the tag isn't hanging from anything, but I was trying for a more ethereal look. The stamp says "dream".

Mother's day card and gifts

I made my mom 6 blank cards for mother's day. Since she retired a few years ago, she has taken up quilting as a hobby. So when I saw this pattern at Splitcoaststamper. Aside from having to cut the squares (note to self, a 3/4" square punch would have been worth the money). they were actually quite quick and easy to put together. The bottom card is the actual card that I made for her.

Pretty Paisley

This is just a little card to send to someone who has had some recent health issues. The sentiment says "sending you sunshine and laughter". It doens't show up too well, but I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the background paper with a paisley pattern. I think that the embossing works better on plain backgrounds, not so much on patterned paper, just for visibility sake. It's all about the learning curve.

Needing a reason to create....

I bought the "Cars" cartridge because I found it way on sale at Walmart. Didn't know what I was going to do with it, but couldn't pass up the bargain. So that created a need to do something, so I made signs for 2 of my nephews. I didn't want to leave out their little sister, but (and this is completely sexist of me) didn't feel that "cars" was appropriate for an 8 month old girl....I do freely admit that if she was a boy, I probably would have done it no problem. So I used "Dress Up Paper Dolls" to do the one for her....it really looks, well, lacking, compared to the Cars ones. Maybe I'll have to invest in some more of the Disney carts...

The Cars ones were my first foray into layered and detailed cuttings - one frustration was that I couldn't always tell what I was cutting, or where it was supposed to go, exactly. A little more detail would have been helpful, but I think they turned out okay....

I can't believe I made this

I had made a card box for my sister's birthday a few weeks ago, but I didn't have the stamps or ideas for the cards yet. When I saw these stamps, I knew they were for my sister. The colours of the box I had made were all wrong. Then I found a pad that just worked. So I made a new box this weekend, and have been working on the note cards, small cards, and tags to go with it. I am so pleased with how the cards turned out, I can't believe that I made them. What has stopped me from doing a lot of card making in the past was that everything I made looked homemade, not home crafted. I have pushed past that with these, I think. The small cards are embossed in blue. The note cards, the image is in black, but the phrase is embossed in silver ( it says "Fashions fade, style is eternal - Yves St. Laurent"). The tags I thought would look nice in the brown sepia toned ink (called Cocoa), but I like the embellishment accent. I think I might now be addicted to bling. I still need to add ribbon or strings to the gift cards, and do the rest of the note cards, but had to share!

Out of my window

Enough already. Really.

Birthday gifts

Saturday I made this card box for my sister's birthday. I still have to make the cards and tags to go in it, but I got the box done. I also have to add some embellishments to the front, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I think this might be a staple gift now. It's meant to hold some larger note cards, some smaller note cards, and a few gift tags. The directions for it are here http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/stationerybox/.

Cabin fever

My husband travels A LOT for work. He left yesterday, comes home tomorrow (at about 10 pm), but leaves again on Sunday, gone for a week, back just to repack a suitcase, leaves again...Between middle of September and middle of December he was gone for about 10 weeks. I'm currently unemployed, and with no kids, there are what seems like days on end that my only social interaction is with the cats.
Especially with the bad weather, it has not been too condusive to go out. Hence the inspiration for today's offering.

I tried to weld the letters using the Gypsy, but I guess I didn't do it right. I did not want to glue the individual letters, so I decided to use the negative image instead. I'm trying to play with colours (using colours I wouldn't normally put together) and with layers.

Question: What do you use for glue? I'm using white glue, and am having problems with it leaking, and curling the paper. I do have some craft two sided tape, but it wouldnt' work on smaller, more delicate images. Suggestions?

Figuring out my Gypsy

I gotta love my husband. There was one cartridge I really wanted, for a very specific project (secret for now...). The man drove all over God's green earth seeking it out for me. He finally found someone selling it on Kajiji. God bless Trish! Not only did she have the cartridge (A Child's Year...apparently non-existant in Canada!) but she was also selling a Gypsy, and as my husband loves to buy me presents (I'm not complaining) so he picked that up as well. Trish was gracious enough to walk us through setting the Gypsy up, and getting it registered, which was a bit of ordeal. So tonight I finally sat down and walked myself through the Gypsy. It wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be. I thought I would get frustrated with how small the screen was, but I didn't realize that it had a zoom feature- that sure helped. It will still take some getting used to, I think - the layers were annoying, but that was because I kept forgetting I needed to switch back and forth. That is what we used to call and "I D ten T" error when I used to work for a software company (ID10T, aka end user error), not the product. So my humble offering for today is just a simple blank card.